


moth trapped in the light by fixation

by featheredfurther (makeshiftrolley)



Series: boycott love [1]
Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: 8 months later, Alex/OMC, Angst, Infidelity, M/M, POV Second Person, Porn with Feelings, Sad, Smut, alex and henry aren't cheating on each other btw, essentially, like so angsty im really apologizing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:22:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28685547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makeshiftrolley/pseuds/featheredfurther
Summary: Hegot in the way. You have this story written out--the prince with the heart outside his body and the handsome peasant boy. They live happily ever after. There’s no valiant knight who whisks away the peasant boy in the epilogue.--Or Alex doesn't storm the palace after the falling out in Kensington, and for one of them, at least, life has gone to hell. This is what happens when they see each other again at a conference in Madrid. [REPOST]
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Series: boycott love [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2102559
Comments: 12
Kudos: 82





	moth trapped in the light by fixation

**Author's Note:**

> Hi uh...this went down in November because I was so anxious about it and the fact that I haven't really delivered the happy part 2 while still having multiple wips going on. I finished those wips and I'm more comfortable reposting it! Story's mostly the same, but I added new scenes for better context, edited some wonky lines and also got it beta'd (Thanks Clare and Meg!)
> 
> Would part 2 come? Idk, it's a huge maybe right now. Believe me, I want a satisfying and happy ending with these boys, and I do have snippets of the sequel which yes, is much happier than this one! I can't really promise anything, since I have other things to work on (including another huge wip), and I can't exactly control where the muse leads me! But I'll always try my best to get it up. It might just take a bit longer!
> 
> Still, I hope you all still enjoy it and the angst!
> 
> Special thanks to all the people at the [RWRB: A Grey Area](https://discord.gg/gVUUaSSubJ) discord for always supporting this fic, and dropping it in people's recs! You guys are awesome!

_He_ is an intern at the Hill, bisexual political science graduate at Georgetown and a queer activist. Originally from South Carolina, he was raised by a single mum working paycheque to paycheque to feed two sons and put herself through nursing school. Growing up queer in the rural South appears in his poems as much as _he_ does. (You don't look at the ones starting with _alex, love_.)

Consider it a curiosity you must satiate, an itch. After President Claremont was reelected, _he_ came out as bisexual in an impassioned speech you definitely did not watch several hundred times, and definitely don’t have saved on your phone, on your laptop, on a tablet somewhere. Two months later, _he_ has a boyfriend. They met at a voting drive in Georgetown just before _his_ mother was reelected. (This was after the lake house. You have the date saved.) It took him weeks of asking before _he_ finally agreed to go on a date with him.

(That is from, _alex, love, the beginning_.)

By the time you meet him, JP—his name is JP—at a charity gala in Madrid, you know him from the poetry he gives _him_ on their first month anniversary (Pablo Neruda, typical) to the songs JP dedicates to _him_. In person, the resemblance is uncanny. He's not as tall as you nor as stocky, and his hair is a darker shade of blonde. His eyes, however, are impossibly blue, like yours. Christ, no wonder _he_ has fallen in love with this JP.

(He's here too, in a suit. Handsome. Perfect.)

"Alex, this is Lady Madeleine Hawthorne," you say, introducing the girl you are supposed to be in love with.

"Just call me Maddy, please." She shakes his hand. He smiles, charming and pleasant, the picture of America's golden boy but his eyes are only at you.

"And this is JP, my boyfriend." He coughs, nudging the boy beside him.

"Hi," JP says, giving a firm handshake. "Alex has said so many things about you!"

A stone settles in your gut. "Really?"

"Yeah, I mean you're best friends! It's cool that your favourite book is _Great Expectations_ by Charles Dickens. I mean, I personally wouldn’t read it outside of class but it’s great that a member of the royal family can find appreciation in a work exploring social class."

"Well there's something oddly romantic about a woman languishing away in her wedding gown,” you say, your unwavering smile paper thin. You don’t know whether to laugh hysterically or cry.

JP looks at him, and something like thorns constrict your heart. “And I love how you and Alex were so involved in promoting clean energy last year. Attending all these conferences in Paris and Berlin, talking about wind turbines and geothermal power plants.”

His cheeks flush. So you’re not the only one who’s imagining the things you did after those conferences.

“You never mentioned being so passionate about clean energy, darling,” Madeleine says, “if I have known, I could have sent you an invite to the solar energy convention in January at Lisbon. My father personally funded the organization."

"We could go to the next one!" JP says, before his eyebrows shoot up, his eyes widening. He fidgets with the loose thread on his sleeve. "I mean if that is alright with you, Your Highness."

"Just call him Henry, babe," he scoffs, "I do it all the time."

"But aren't you like his best friend? Aren't there rules for this?"

 _Best friend_. You were more than that. The world doesn't know.

"So? He's not the Queen and he's fourth in line. _Fifth_ , now that Martha's pregnant."

"Right, I think Madeleine and I will find our seats." You snake your arm around her waist. Later, after all this pomp and circumstance, you will scrub that arm with soap until the skin is raw and chafed.

Two tables down, him and JP laugh and talk and are completely enamoured with each other. You wish _he_ was with you instead.

Usually when things get too much, you find comfort in fresh air and mapping the constellations. Security has closed the exits, however, and won't let you sneak out without explicit orders from the organizers. You seek refuge in the washroom instead. Loosening your tie, you wash your face.

(Don't love him. Don't love him. Don't love him. You're not supposed to. Don't love him. He has a boyfriend. He loves someone else. Don't love him.)

A washroom stall unlocks. He steps out. Your body goes rigid. Fate truly has an ugly way of stringing people together. He moves past you, and turns on the tap. You catch his gaze on the reflection. He ignores you. Tap off.

"She seems nice," he says, drying his hands with a paper towel and still not looking at you. "I'm sure your grandmother loves that you finally got your life straight."

You wince at his comment.

"Does she know?" He tests you, always testing you.

"Alex,” you say.

"Just answer my question, _does she know_?"

"No, she does not. As far as she knows, I'm courting her and we are perfectly in love."

"Figures," he scoffs.

"Alex, this is a lot more complicated than you know," you say.

"Then tell me! How is this more complicated than you living a lie?" He whips around, eyes wide and shining.

"Because this isn't about me, you arse! This is about--" You gesture helplessly at yourself, your status, your _title._ "Why do you even care? Don't you have someone else to accost in a cloakroom?"

"I still want you to be happy, dumbass!" he says, and he sucks in a breath.

The next moment happens in a blur, point A to point B and point C--your mouth on his, his mouth on yours. His hand fist the strands of your hair. Yours come around his neck and his waist. If you _try_ , you can lock him inside the chambers of your heart. Never let him go. You've done it once.

(He has a boyfriend. Don't love him. He loves someone else. Don't love him. He doesn't love you. You have duty and country, a birthright defining you.)

He pushes you into a stall, slamming you against the panel. He bucks his hips, and your brain short circuits. Suddenly, all the pieces in your head rearrange, fitting themselves in the gaps you've carved out since he exited your life.

"This is a one-time thing, okay?" He hisses, breath hot against your lips, and your head spins. "You're still on the no-fly list for fucking ghosting me after the lakehouse."

"Right."

"And--" He looks at his shoes, and then at you, jaw set and his nostrils fuming. He says to you as much as himself. "And I have a boyfriend."

"Right." And you pointedly don't ask why this boyfriend, this JP, this bisexual activist from South Carolina, whose working-class mother raised two boys and marches at Pride parades with her two queer sons isn't kissing him at public toilets.

You have a date. _She_ didn't even cross your mind.

(She isn't your date.)

He loops your tie around his fist, pulling you down for another searing kiss. You miss this, miss _him_. His hands find your belt, you don't stop him. Your hands find his, he doesn't stop you either.

(You had your chance at the lake house, and you ran away. Why? Love was all over his face that night. His brown doe eyes stripped away your skin and sinews, your bones and blood. All that remains is your very being. Pandora's Box unveiled. No wonder you wanted to lock it all up.

 _Why_?

A person filled that you-shaped hole. Someone unbound from country and duty and birthright. Someone who could make him happy.)

***

You don't hate him.

You cannot hate him.

You don't hate him when he's all smiles and bright teeth, soft brown eyes and a charming laugh; a beauty which deserves an exhibition at the V&A, a beauty not for you. They're happy. He's happy. Happiness is the kindest gift you can give to him, after you've severed everything else.

(Don't make this messier.)

JP drinks wine and discusses environmental justice with Madeleine at a restaurant in New York. They don't know. She enjoys the risotto. Two plates cool in front of two empty seats. She discusses the new exhibition at the MET that JP needs to see. He laughs, taking a bite of his rice pilaf. _They don't know_.

You fuck him hard and fast in the bathroom stall. No space between you. No time to peel layer after layer like lovers do.

(He has a boyfriend.)

" _Baby_ ," he moans, fluttering under you, around you—an all-consuming fire searing you from inside out. One word and after all this time, you’re trapped under his spell. He truly _is_ a sorcerer.

You kiss the skin above his collar, inhaling the scent of him, sandalwood and freshly trimmed grass—and JP's cologne. A primal need knots inside of you. You thrust in deep, brushing your teeth against his skin not to mark, but to _remember_. His muffled cries echo, mixed with yours and the rattling of the stall. Underneath the heady haze of pleasure, you think, someone could walk in. A server could hear the Prince of England fuck America’s heartthrob. JP could—

Your life is a goddamn circus, and you’re walking on a tightrope.

He bites the back of his hand as he cums, smearing long ropes on the stall. You coax him through the tremors, thrusting into him until you finish—a choked groan in his ear. His lungs give out a tiny whimper, and he slumps on the wall, spent.

He wastes no time cleaning himself up, and exiting the bathroom. You don't think about the guilt. JP must be nice. He _is_ nice, nicer than you after you fucked _his_ boyfriend.

It's just….

Well….

 _He_ got in the way. You have this story written out--the prince with the heart outside his body and the handsome peasant boy. They live happily ever after. There’s no valiant knight who whisks away the peasant boy in the epilogue.

At the table, he sings praises about the lukewarm risotto and kisses his boyfriend on the cheek. His fingers occasionally brush the indents on his hand. He ignores you for the entire evening.

(You cannot love him. You have your country and duty and birthright.)

Sometimes, he touches you like a lover should. Sometimes, he kisses you tenderly and surely, you think you'll suffocate if he breaks away. In a hotel room in Vienna, he straddles you and tenderly wraps his arms around your shoulders. Sometimes, _sometimes_ you think he loves you too.

"I want to see you," he says, and then he reaches for the lightswitch.

It's supposed to be different. You're supposed to feel no devotion, no carnal desire. He's all shadows, sweaty limbs and sweet words, hips bucking against yours. His pleasured noises pour into your mouth, mixing with yours, barely a breath, and yet they fill up the entire room. You've never felt this close to anyone, never felt _this_ connected. You have him, and _only him_ , mind, body and soul.

His body goes rigid. His fingers dig into your back, trembling and whimpering your name. His orgasm crashes onto you like a tidal wave; the aftershocks rip the climax out of you, and you cling onto him, too, blurring the lines between his body and yours. You kiss his solar plexus. You remember what belief felt like.

After, as your heart settles and your bodies cool, he switches on the lamp, stretching beside you. Sex always shuts him up. Stops his too fast brain at its tracks. He looks at the ceiling with a crease between his eyebrows. Maybe this is when the guilt settles in.

(Oh no, you hurt him.

He hurt you first. It's only fair.)

(No, _you_ hurt him first.)

You turn on your side, touching his damp skin beneath the key pointing South. His home in Austin where he grew up, before the presidency and America's golden boy, before you. The lakehouse had fragments of who this boy was, stuck somewhere in the wooden panels, buried deep in the soil and floating on the lake. If the universe had been kinder, if you weren't such a goddamn coward, he would have held your hand and pointed them all.

He looks at you. No stars. No sunshine.

“I love you." He says as if a fact taken out of a history book. No life or colour animates the characters on the page. “Back at the lakehouse, I was going to tell you. And then, well, you know.”

 _I love you too,_ and the words die at your throat. Why can't you say it and have him back?

"How about now?" you ask, instead, and this too is braver and bolder than you can ask of anyone, much more of him.

"I have a boyfriend."

This is too much.

"Then what are we doing, Alex?" you say, jutting your chin. "Does _he_ know where you are? Which bed you come to after every bloody event we attend together?"

"Do not bring JP into this," he says through clenched teeth. Starlight has returned in his eyes, and you _ache_.

" _Why?_ He's an unwilling participant in our fucking--" A lump balls inside your throat. What are _you_ doing?

"At least, I don't plan to spend my entire life trapped in a cage," he hisses, then he looks at you with soft chestnut eyes. This is like the early August morning in a warm kitchen with warm pancakes, and you and him.

"Don't you want to be happy?" he says.

 _Don't you want to be happy?_ Right, as if the focal point of your complicated life is _your_ happiness.

“This is more than what I want. I have a birthright for Christ’s sake! To a country, a family who would not support me if I—if I—” You cover your eyes with your hand. “And you shouldn’t call me a coward for accepting it.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

He rolls off the bed and starts pulling on his pants. You consider asking him to stay. Watch night turn into dawn. Order room service in the morning. Kiss the caffeine out of his mouth, and fuck him again and again until you're both chafed.

Maybe, he'll smile again. You miss his smile.

He fixes his hair on the mirror, his skin flushed and covered in a slight sheen. He buttons up his dress shirt, and walks towards the door.

(Do it now. Ask him to stay.)

People like you don't take. You let stones roll off your back even if they pierce your skin. You don't ask for hope even if hope looks at you with big brown eyes and kisses like the world is his to own. You must keep a level of decorum after all.

“If I told you,” you say, propping on your elbows. “If I told you what you wanted to hear back then, will you still have me?”

The door slams shut, dulling the sound of your heart shattering.

***

Three weeks later, there’s a rainforest conservation conference in Paris. Three weeks later, he presses you in alcove during refreshments; a promise for later, _after_ in between heated kisses. You miss him. Since he’s a constant in your orbit again, your body aches for his touch; your heart aches for his heart, even if you only have pieces. You slip a plastic card in his hand--your hotel room key. He whispers in the hair above your ear his plans for you tonight.

He's handsome but he has never looked better than this. Rolling his hips on your cock, his head tipped back, sweat-slicked curls sticking on his forehead, and the sounds, _oh_ , the sounds coming from his lips are music. Notes to a symphony yet completed; its sheets dipped in blue ink. Like the lake and his room when the moon shone through windows, bathing him in cool tones. Like this room, in this city across the blue Atlantic, the night shrouding him like a second skin.

He likes keeping the lights off. He likes not seeing _you_. He pressed it on your tongue when you first agreed to this arrangement.

(Like how he doesn't like fucking you. In his own twisted way of having you and keeping _him_ , he justifies his ethics by the way he takes your cock. How awful.)

_Henry—ah!_

You don't like seeing him either.

 _Fuck, that's so good,_ baby _._

You want to touch him. Hold his cheek. Call him _love_ and _beautiful_. Instead, you grip his hips, urging him on. They'll bruise, marks dotting his hips, on his chest, his collarbone; stars spread on his skin. When he pokes them in his room across the ocean, he'll remember. Now you understand why they immortalized people on constellations.

_Henry!_

His phone rings on the nightstand.

He picks it up.

_"Hi, baby."_

Oh.

It's him.

" _Yeah, I'm good. Can't facetime right now. Had a long day at the conference so I'm beat—Ah!"_

You thrust your hips up, politely reminding him and him who he was at the conference for. You hope the slap of skin on skin and his sounds ring on his end. He had you first. You wrote sonnets about him, _first_. You constructed a life with him, an unattainable fantasy as it were, but a life nonetheless. One you constantly consider in your dark stupors. One which haunts you in dreams.

(He called you, _baby_ , first.)

(That's the crux of the problem, isn't it?)

"Ngh— _yeah uhm...everything's fine—_ mhmm _. I just—just hit—_ Jesus _—yeah I hit the headboard_."

Your hands curve on the swell of his arse spreading his cheeks and thrusting deeper and harder into him. He squeezes his eyes shut, lips falling slack with a soundless moan, hips undulating in time with your rhythm. And _oh god_. You groan, loudly. He glares at you, his free hand twisting in your hair. His other hand grips his phone. You want to throw that fucking thing away.

_"I—I—have to go."_

He disconnects. Drops the phone on the floor.

_What was that for?_

Of course. He has the gall to ask.

We _were busy,_ you say, teeth clenched and dipped in poison. He has a comeback forming behind his lips. You don't wait. Instead, you flip him around so his back is on the mattress, looking at you with starlight in his impossibly black eyes. You forget you’re supposed to be mad at him. You kiss him, slow and soft and tender. For one second—one blip in the twenty-five years this Earth has given you, you believe, no you _deserve_ your own destiny. And he kisses like the universe is his to take.

 _Please_ , he moans, bites the shell of your ear and exhales.

_Fuck me._

And so you do, rocking into him with gentle thrusts. His thighs come around your waist; his hands dig into your back; his lips on your lips. You swallow every moan, every _more_ , _please, fuck,_ every whisper of your name. Everything. You have him completely. It sets your skin on fire knowing he has this with you and only you. No one else. Not him.

(He has his heart. So who's the real loser here?)

Heat plumes around your spine, your rhythm growing erratic. He touches himself, pumping his cock in time with your thrusts. The sight of him, _oh_. It pushes you over the edge, panting his name at the crook of his neck as you come undone inside of him. He follows you soon after, spilling all over his hand and his stomach.

You lay there on top of him. The sounds of your uneven breathing reverberating in this blue room, in this city where the moon filters through the curtains just like the lake house across the blue Atlantic. When your breathing settles, you roll off of him and head to the bathroom. You dispose of the soiled condom in the wastebin somewhere, and grab the washcloth in the sink. You clean yourself up. You don’t turn on the lights. You dislike seeing yourself after this. When you return to the bedroom, he’s curled on his side, asleep.

See, here is where your story, the one you crafted in your head, ends differently. You would have kept the lights on. See him washed in golden light, all sticky, and sweaty and pleasant in the afterglow. You would kiss him and kiss him and kiss him until he relents, pushing you down for another round. Or you would have pulled him in, covering his body with yours.

This, however, is not your story. In this tale, you slide under the covers, keeping a distance. You listen to his soft snores before drifting off to sleep.

(You forget you don't sleep on the same bed as him.)

An addendum.

Here is the part where Alex Claremont-Diaz reconsiders his mistake.

1\. Dawn in Paris is softer than the last time he woke up to it. Both times were clandestine hookups with a European royal, one year apart.  
2\. Said European royal is sleeping beside him, naked under the sheets. They aren’t supposed to wake up like this.  
3\. A missed call from JP. His thumb has been hovering over “Call back” since he woke up half an hour ago.  
4\. Henry's shoulders cover his shoulders.  
5\. Henry's arm wraps around his waist too, and his lips press on the junction between his neck and shoulder.  
6\. For the first time in a while, Alex has woken up warm and alight and _safe_. He can sink into this feeling forever.  
7\. The last time was at the lakehouse.  
8\. Last time reminded him why he cannot and isn't allowed to sink into this feeling forever.  
9\. Henry looks peaceful.  
10\. Alex touches his cheek, careful not to wake him up. He's actually sleeping for once.  
11\. The last time was at the lakehouse.  
12\. There's a missed call from JP, timed at 3:00 AM in Paris. Since he woke up an hour ago, Alex’s thumb has hovered over "Call back."  
13\. Henry looks peaceful.  
14\. This is where his life comes collapsing like a set of dominoes.

> a. The lists count to a finite number.  
>  b. Nora has explained to him once about a mathematical concept called convergent sequences. If a sequence of numbers is bounded, the sequence approaches a converging point where all numbers end and start anew.

15\. This is his converging point.

1\. He still loves Henry.  
2\. He hasn’t stopped loving Henry.  
3\. Even when he’s with JP, and it’s wrong and he hates himself for thinking about someone else when he’s with him, his boyfriend but it’s true.  
4\. Henry doesn’t love him.

> a. He does.  
>  b. The problem is he’s not allowed.  
>  c. No, he doesn’t allow himself to have you.

5\. Henry looks peaceful.

> a. He can’t see him wake up.  
>  b. Henry's voice is rough in the morning when he greets, _good morning, love_.  
>  c. Henry kisses him after, and he complains about the morning breath. Soon their kisses become heated, and Alex takes him as he did the night before.  
>  d. Heat settles in the pit of his belly just thinking about it.

6\. So he leaves.  
7\. Easier this way.  
8\. No strings attached.  
9\. No heartbreak.  
10\. Quietly, so as to not wake him up. He's sleeping wonderfully for once.

> a. Alex does kiss his cheek before going.  
>  b. He says, _goodbye sweetheart._

***

His pillow smells of him and his cologne and sex in the morning. Clutching it to your chest, you cry and cry and cry.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me at  
> [Tumblr](https://claremonts-diaz.tumblr.com/)


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